Faction Increase

Alot of ppl are talking about the amount of time that it takes a PvP character to get skills, weapons, and runes unlocked and I have to say that it is very time consuming. It took and continues to take my Ranger anywhere from 1 to 2 weeks to get just 1000 faction in the Team and Random arenas. In PvE I can unlock, recieve for quest or purchase from skills person, a skill in about 10 minutes or less. Althought this system is new it does not allow for experience or the "prize" of victory.

Here is what I think:

Every 2 Consecutive wins faction is increased by 1 for kills and by 2 for win.

In by death match arena make every kill pay faction.

Now, of course, I do not really expect it to happen but I thought that I would post it and see what others thought about it.

I highly disagree.

My first character has a few hundred hours and I still haven't unlocked Superior Vigor or Absorption (hell I don't even have Major Absorption). As is my understanding, you need 4500 faction to unlock a superior rune. I went into the tombs for about an hour after the new faction system was introduced and got 123 points. Do the math...

To me it doesn't seem fair at all. In order for me to get a superior rune, I have to get my character far enough. In the time it takes me to do that, you probably could've unlocked any superior rune you needed. Not only that, but gold armours don't drop with high frequency, and only through farming can you change this. IF a gold armour drops, I have a 1/74 (28 different runes, minor, major and superior of each) chance that it will be the rune I want. And I have to pray that I salvage it alright.

No I think the faction system is just fine the way it is.

[QUOTE=Racthoh]I highly disagree.

And I have to pray that I salvage it alright.

QUOTE]

but i did get a full 15 planks of wood

that honestly hurt

Addressing this is easy the Superior Runes are 2000 faction and if you can win in the Tombs you can accelerate your point collection but if you read above my suggestion is for the Random (Lion's Arch) and Team Arena (Draknor) where you recieve 2 Faction per kill and 6 Faction for win, total of 10 faction. At this rate it takes weeks to unlock anything and that is at 3 hours per night playing and about 30 - 60 faction per night. I cleared 1008 faction in 2 weeks. My only other option is go buy the weapons in PvE...

Now as for the Colored Gold and Purple Armor Drops: I can usually get anywhere from 6 to 10 per night in PvE. I just got a Major Absorption 2 nights ago in the Citidel Area. Also unlocked Superior Marksmanship on a gold armor grab for my ranger. Oh and not to many read through the long list of Updates on Guild Wars website, but one the pervious updates made Armor Savlage (Dropped colored armor) 100% salvage ( I have not lost one in about 3 weeks). The chance of loss only applies to runes that you have placed on you characters armor.

I still think that this is a positive forward advance idea.

The faction system isn't that bad imo. You need a PvE player to unlock the stuff with your faction point so, in the time you get to the last place for the Priest of Balthazar, you could have already unlock a few items and skill.

But i can agree that they could cutdown a bit the requirement to buy the stuff with faction or increase faction reward a bit.

[QUOTE=Loviatar]Wood for armor? It might have been a grip that you were trying to salvage from a weapon but not armor, as no dropped armor that I can recall, I am in the Shiverpeaks Area, salvages for wood.

superior rune not armor

edit

i need the physical rune as an unlock does me no good in the land of PVErts

To fix the faction problem, have EVERY skill and rune cost 200, Elite and Superior runes move cost 500.

The average player that work can plays for 3 to 5 average and the non-working player plays up to 5 to 8 hours average. At the most, you can get 100 to 150 points per hour so you would only get 2 to 3 moves per day if you work and 3 to 8 moves if you don't.

Agreed, faction in the team/random arenas are too low. It usually takes about 8 hours to unlock 1 minor rune / weapon upgrade / skill. That's alot of time, considering how much is needed unlocked.

considering you are having fun doing it so what if it takes a few month to have everything.

PvE mission and quests are not fun. Taking out one monsters of the same level takes 20 to 30 seconds all because 1) it was given a high durability or 2) A lot life. It takes 10 to 20 minute each because you have to fight wave after wave of monster with one of the attribute noted above. Instead of increasing difficulty of the monster, they come in large numbers giving you the illusion that's difficult and it's what hurt early MMOs and today RPGs. In other words, making players work tediously for something can kill the gameplay so lower the cost of skills, runes and equipment would increase incentitive to play that mode.

This is why PvE became so unpopular to the masses so quickly.

I gained about 300 faction in only 2 hours doing competition and team arenas. Maybe you need to step up your game? And I'm not even a hardcore PvP'er, lol. I really have no interest in using the faction to unlock skills, only to unlock the armor grip for my bow.

The only people I ever here complaing about PvE are on this forum. I agree, I HATE missions, but the quests are more fun then any MMORPG I have ever played.

If you're taking 10 minutes to kill a boss I suggest you reconsider your build.

the faction is in good standing as i see it. i think it's to help promote the GvG and tombs. the first day the update came out my guild did a few matches, and after about 1 hour i had 1500 faction. now i'm at er.... like 12,000. bummer that i dont really need any of it. WTS faction wisper me

Actually they are number of reason why it went sours, but I'm not trying turn this into a PvE vs. PvP topic.

Who said about anything about A BOSS? I'm talking about groups of enemies within PvE. Each group takes up 10 to 20 minutes. 10 if you get one group and 20 if you accidentally string several groups, which happens since the A.I had random patrol patterns. The A.I isn't hard, which is why I said the groups of enemies are providing a illusion to the lack Smart A.I.

It can take an hour or more to beat quest further down the road ONLY because the enemies comes in groups and HAVE to grind through them. You can see early signs of this when fighting the Charr in post searing. You nothing but fight large unavoidable groups of them.

few hundred hours...? ive only played like 50 hours and i got em both.

Its supposed to be a supplemental way to unlock things. at least thats how i grasped it. Havn't been able to get your hands on that skill? can't find this rune for your PVP char? work towards it. But unlocking everything in stricktly pvp should requre major effort.

Just curious how does it suppliment my character when I can only use them on a PvP character and only if I delete the one that I have to use? You cannot use the unlocks on your PvE character....Oh and since my post they have updated the Faction system victory is now worth 10 faction and Flawless is worth 12 and we are back to getting experience....YEA!

I think there needs to be MAJOR faction increase in tomes, should be +5 whenever you kill someone and +100 for flawless. Because they make it soooo hard to get in, that its going to be soooo hard to get flawless or unique kill, becuase mostly friends with friends or guildies or guildies are in it. Also tomes is the hardest place, it should have X2 what the competition arenas have. Someone playing in yaks bend should not beat someone in tomes to getting superior tatics rune.

The new faction system work like a champ. I have unlock one new skill over the weekend and half way to the Elite Skill that I want. Thursday - Sunday (33 Hours total = 2300 Faction) I like these odds better. Thank you GW?Arena Net

Frankly it's still too long unless you can consistently win in tombs. There's really no logical reason against making faction gaining easier for the average player. Stop complaining if it doesn't affect you.

The Faction system is not bad, sure it's take more time than we would like it to take but oh well. I'v made a lot of GvG with my team lately and i think i get around 1000 to 1300 faction per hour of play.

The system isn't bad now.

+2 Faction for each unique kill, +10 faction for a regular win, +12 if it was flawless

I personally have already unlocked my minor and major air runes, and my major vigor. Here I come superior vigor. 5500 Faction from just the team arenas..

Ahhh, we are getting spoiled. Remember the era of no faction? Imagine having to cap EVERY single spell.

Faction is the icing on the cake, too much sugar isn't good for you. Keep the faction low for random arenas, you wouldn't want to spoil the challenge of getting EVERYTHING too quickly right?

You can cap the elites in PvE but faction is for PvP Characters only. When you unlock a skill it is not applied to your PvE (roleplaying character) it is only available to your PvP (player vs player battling characters). It is not a cake walk to get faction either, those 33 hours were a lot of hard work and the result of good teams working together to go 7 and 9 in a row. With that, of course one would not want to spoil it, but faction does not spoil it instead it allows for the PvP characters to change what they already have instead of being stuck in a specific build.

Just my 2 cents... I don't think getting faction is too difficult. If you actually really "Consceutively" win, then you can get up to ATLEAST 100 faction in one hour. If it takes you 1 to 2 weeks to play 10 hours, then you're probably PVP'ing less than an hour a day. GvG-wise, i've gotten about 220 base faction per match along with about another 20 from kills and such. They can take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour therefore in a lucky situation, you gain 250 faction within an hour. As for unlocking things like superior vigor and absorption, I HARDLY see exactly who would pay 4500 faction for this. Assuming that you are a complete newbie and haven't unlocked major and minor which you can buy for probably 3 plat, then it would be a very difficult task. 2,000 faction can be difficult to get, but it doesn't take a week if you actually do well in arena.

During a rant, people often ignore logic in order to make them sound right. An example being somebody saying it costs 1k faction for a minor rune. If you were thinkng, you could simply buy a UNID or spend about an hour farming for it then you'd have an option of a major rune for only 1500 faction. Skills aren't worth buying, not because faction is too hard to get, but because the prices are too high.

Uh. I did 3 GvG matches, won all 3, got around 800 faction. Each match took maybe 20 or 30 minutes, tops. Solution: get a dedicated GvG team and go at it.

100 faction for an hour? not much

This is the problem as I see it with the faction system:
(skip to bottom for conclusion)

The PvP faction system was designed so players could unlock skills, upgrades, and runes equally as they could in PvE. Many players hate playing through PvE more than once, so to them unlocking through PvP is the fun way.

The only problem is, when a player gets a certain amount of faction, he gets unlocks. The PvE player playing through the game doesn't get unlocks. he gets random runes and random modifiers. Let's say that it takes the same time to get 1000 faction as it does to find a blue armor. With that 1000 faction you are guarenteed to unlock a new minor; with a blue armor, are you guarenteed to unlock something new? What're the chances that you'll find a minor vigor for the 100th time?

If a PvE player gets a rare bow, he might get 2 new modifiers. Or he might get 1 modifier, which is still good. Or, he can get a modifier he already has. Let's say it takes the same amount of time for a PvE player to find a gold staff as it does for a PvP player to get 2000 faction. The PvE player finds an Insightful (+1) Staff of Defense (+1). The PvP player redeems for an Insightful (+1) and Defense (+1). Now, let's say the same situation happens again. Same time for each, except one has an unIDed gold staff and the other has 2k faction. The PvP player can go straight to Insightful (+5) and Defense (+5), while the PvE character may get +1s again, or may get better mods, but they're imperfect at +3 or +4.

I attribute this problem moreso to the actual game itself, and not any unlocking methods. Having mods with variables such as "+1-5," "+10-20%," etc. is just stupid for a game based on "skill over time played." Those variables do make a difference, however small, and just adds a problem that doesn't need to be there.

So the faction system far outweighs the PvE upgrade/rune unlocking system. It's not even close; the way at which a person unlocks weapon and rune upgrades through PvE will take five times as much time as if he/she had unlocked through PvP.

Now, in regards to skills, unless you're pulled in 500 Faction for each GvG win, it's better off to go through PvE, in the majority of cases. Yes, some elites are in far off places and it'd be easier to get 2k faction or whatever it is to unlock the elites. But for the most part, PvE has the better end in this section. In my opinion a much better end, which is another disparity.

Now, regarding Factions effect on PvE characters: Weapons such as swords and shields are tilted slightly to the PvP-only characters, but hardly. They start out with 15% dmg while health > 50%, something than takes forever to find in PvE or costs a lot through trading. Occasionally PvE characters come out on top, like with 7 req. max AL shields, but that it's very rare that one of these comes out with the modifiers the PvP shields have. In terms of most upgrades, it's as easy to buy them for your PvE characters as it is to unlock for your PvP characters to use, except in the extreme cases: +5 Vampiric Bow Strings, +30 Fortitude mods, etc. Some of these aren't needed, but others are extremely costly to buy/trade for your PvE characters to use, while it's pretty easy to unlock through PvP. The main problem is outfitting your character with runes. It could take you 500 hours to find a superior Vigor in PvE (another major problem with the game), and it could cost you 50-100k to buy it for your PvE character. If you unlocked a Superior Vigor through PvP with a PvE character, you should be able to use it on your PvE character. Make the rune customized so that it couldn't be traded, to prevent sale into the PvE world.

CONCLUSION:
ArenaNet said Guild Wars was a game of skill over time played. Then why was it so hard for everyone to unlock the runes/items before the patch, and why is it still hard for PvErs to unlock the upper most items? If two teams of equal skill play each other, the team with the better items/unlocks wins. So my irritations with the game right now:

1. The unlocking in regards to items/runes is heavily favored towards the Faction system and is not equal. Faction gives definite unlocks in regards to upgrades and runes, while rune/weapon drops in PvE can yield the player no NEW upgrades or runes. If you're going to allow faction rewards choose what is unlocked next, have armor and weapon drops be "unlocks" as well. If an armor drops, have a place in the outposts where I can go to an NPC, give them my unIDed armor, and select which rune I want to unlock next. Same with unIDed weapons.
2. The skill unlocking is heavily favored towards the PvE unlocking system and is not equal. Decrease the costs for normal skills and elites. Maybe you could balance the cost of an elite to how hard it is to capture it in PvE, but hey, you made them tedious to get.
3. GET RID OF VARIANCE IN MODS. Items aren't supposed to be of great importance, so just have one value for each mod. There shouldn't be a range of +1-5 AL for the "Insightful" mod, there should just be +5 and it's done with. That'll drive down the insane prices people like to charge for "perfect" items. "Perfect" mods don't show skill, they show luck. If everything's the same, nobody would even look to eBay to get that "uber" sword, because it'd be readily available to them in game.
4. Allow PvE characters to get items unlocked, but make the runes and upgrades customizable. Maybe they'd be unable to salvage the runes out of their armors, or the rune itself once salvaged would be customized so nobody else but that character could use it. Treat the item unlocks like the pre-order items.
5. I'd suggest that the Guild Lord in GvG act like the Priest in Tombs. Once he's killed, the team stops ressing, but you need to kill the team and their Guild Lord to win. That would stop ganking. But hey, if they had the important skills and runes unlocked, they wouldn't need to look for the "fastest" way.

My opinion differs from STINGER in many ways regarding the PvP unlocking system. I think it's a good option for those who don't want to play PvE, and I can understand that because I dread leveling up characters and capping skills. I would like, however, for it to be equal with PvE, and that means tweaking on both sides. I don't agree with STINGER that it exclude the guilds below 1500, because although they can unlock 2.5 times faster than the lower guilds, eventually they won't need faction and they can help create a competitive atmosphere. Other guild will eventually get there as well. I do think, however, that many people should've looked past the 'Unlock All Skills' button they had in the BWEs and they should've realized that they were going to have to unlock at retail. ArenaNet has improved some of their unlocking in the way they changed Signet of Capture to work, but their nerfing of farming spots is in my opinion ridiculous in worsening an already bad state. At that point, farming was still preparing for PvP which ArenaNet said wouldn't be in the game, but killing Riverside and co. made it a hell of a lot worse.

Those are just some changes I'd like to see made. Of course, there's always the matter of making PvE actually interesting to play more than once, and the damn annoyance that FedEx quests add. But after that, I'm done typing for a while.

Absolutly disagree. It is incrediably easy to get faction point, I have already unlocked superior absop and vigor and I still have 3000 faction left. It takes me about an hour to get 500-600 faction, so that means a superior vigor every 4 hours. Its low enough.

You still have to play PvE because in order to unlock anything you have to be able to go to the priest...Priest's are in the major towns. Example Elites Priest is in Draknor. So you still have to run one character through the PvE game.

And yes I would agree that the new system is working a lot better now.